The Crack in My Heart

Lorna and I attended the Easter Vigil service on Saturday at Trivitt Memorial Church in Exeter.  It was a truly wonderful service of new light.  I was particularly moved when the wonderful bells rang out after the Exsultet which was beautifully wonderfully sung by the cantor. 

That experience brought to life great line of poetry from Lenard Cohen (or Saint Lenny as I have come to call him):

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Those bells certainly still can and do ring.  The light of Christ was brought into the church in a very moving procession at the beginning of the service with the Deacon proclaiming “The light of Christ” and the congregation singing in response “Thank be to God”.  

The question that was focused for me in that moment was, what is the crack in our lives that lets the light of Christ in?   We often think of a crack as something negative.  There is a crack in the foundation of our house or another building that needs to be repaired.  If we have a crack in a dish it will probably have to be discarded.  If we fall and crack some bone in our body it will have to be put in a cast until it heals.  So what crack can let the light in?

I first heard this phrase many years ago when I first heard St. Lenny’s song Anthem on his album The Future which was released in 1992.  It was probably in that year as I have always bought Leonard’s albums (or received them as gifts) as soon as they are released.  That phase resonated with me immediately and I understood it as an expression of the reality that it is through our humanness and imperfections that we receive the blessing of life from God; that is how we become more fully the people God created us to be.  We will make mistakes and better yet mistakes are inevitable as we are created to live and love and learn and discover who we are and who God made us to be.  That does not happen without living our lives as fully as possible and we cannot do that without making mistakes.  It is through our mistakes and cracks that we are made whole.

I still believe that and it has become truer for me the longer I live.  However, the new realization that came to me during the Easter Vigil is that the crack needs to be in the protective armour that we build around ourselves and particularly around our hearts.  We spend so much of our lives creating protective walls and barricades and cocoons.  We encase our hearts in iron cocoons again the hurts that others have inflicted on us.  The crack in that protective armour will let the light on Christ—the love of Christ in to our hearts.  However, there is no guarantee that this will happen.  Even if a crack in that armour opens it, we may let fear close it up again. 

We are called to let the light of Christ into our hearts.  We are called to share that love with others; with the world. So let us all:Easter Vigil

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

An All-Embracing Perfection

Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in (Leonard Cohen)

In his most recent column in the January edition of Huron Church News, the Rev. Jim Innes closes his column, Goof Bravely: the joy of making mistakes, with the above quote from Leonard Cohen.  I was most please to see this reference by a fellow priest who happens to be the Rector of the congregation I attend.

This quote is my favourite lyric from my favourite song writer (I have been and remain an unapologetic Leonard Cohen fan most of my life—which is a long time indeed).  It is from his song Anthem which was in his album The Future released in 1992.  These few lines reveal a depth of wisdom that has resonated with me ever since I heard it.  It also cracks open a challenge I have had (and still do); that is the desire for perfection. That is also a challenge which plagues many people.  It may surprise those of you who know me that I have what might be described as a perfection complex. 

I had not consciously thought of myself as a perfectionist as I did not strive to do many things in my life perfectly, as I believed that perfectionists engaged the world.  They, I believed, would spend endless time and countless energy to ensure that whatever they did was perfect.  I did not attempt to engage in things that I believed would require me to be a perfectionist.  This is true for instance in things that required me to do work with my hands such as woodwork.  I knew it was not possible and I therefore did not undertake them. There are many other aspects of life that I probably avoided in part because I knew I could not do them perfectly.    

In his column, Rev. Jim addresses this problem very well.  He notes that, “The fear of making mistakes will lead us to some terrible consequences, or that making mistakes is a sign of weakness or incompetence.”  This approach to perfection is enabled and even made worse by Christianity.  As Jim notes, “This guilt driven life sentence can unfortunately find validation in our Christian churches”. 

Christian theology tells us to strive for perfection.  For example, the Gospel of Matthew 5: 48 is traditionally translated as ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’.  This seems to contradict much of Jesus’s teaching which, for example, is addressed to the crowd not to stone the woman caught in adultery.  Jesus said only the one without sin could cast the first stone knowing that they (and we) are all sinful and need repentance.  An alternative translation to the passage is proposed by Neil Douglas-Klotz in his book A Prayer for the Cosmos.  The author looks at the original Aramaic, Jesus native language, and translates the passage, “Be all-embracing, as you heavenly Father is all-embracing.” 

This passage and similar ones direct Christians to seek perfection and the understanding of God, as all good.  I could not reconcile them with my understanding of humanity as creatures of God, created in the image of God.  This new translation reconciled that dichotomy for me and brought my desire for perfection into a conscious awareness. 

This understanding enables me to reconcile these passages.  We are to seek wholeness not perfection.  We need the cracks in our lives.  That is how the light comes in; Hallelujah (but that is another Leonard Cohen song and another story). 

I will close with a quote from Richard Rohr:

One great idea of the biblical revelation is that God is manifest in the ordinary, in the actual, in the daily, in the now, in the concrete incarnations of life. Our experiences of ordinary life will transform us if we are willing to experience them fully. This is quite different than much of religion’s emphasis on being pure, perfect, or correct to find God. Jesus stands religion on its head! In fact, some historians of religion claim that Jesus proclaimed the end of religion. (Of course, we quickly undid this mistake!)  Richard Rohr Daily Meditation January 13, 2017

An Ode to Leonard

Today I am remembering and mourning the loss of Leonard Cohan.  His songs have spoken to my heart and soul all my adult life.  Below is an Ode to Leonard which is my attempt to say a little of what he meant to me and so many others.  As Leonard he "got us singing even though the news was bad.  Blessings on your journey.

Ode to Leonard

Now, so long, Leonard, and

 It truly is time that we begin

To laugh and cry

and cry and laugh

about it all again

You were my man

You were my muse

In a famous blue raincoat

You slyly revealed

 Glimpses of your wisdom

and the mysteries you

gave your voice to.

The gift of your golden voice

Which we were blessed to hear

So loud and so clear. 

Will now longer ring

The voice of the midnight choir

Will no longer sing.

You have danced to the end

Of Life but not love.

You have danced to the end

Of life but not of your song.

You music will go on

From beyond the grave

From beyond the great beyond

For us here to sing along.

May the Sisters of Mercy

Escort you to a heaven  

Which will not be dead

 On the Saturday nights that lie ahead.

The Gates of Love have opened wide

To dance you to the end of love inside.

You sang that democracy

Was coming to the U.S.A.

It has revealed foremost and first

to be  the home of the best

and the home the worst.

You were the little Jew

Who wrote the bible of songs

Of love and faith.

Of life both right and wrong.

You showed us Jesus there on Calvary’s hill

Who told us all to love, not hate.

He knew that we could still be true

But there was lots left, it is not too late. 

You told us of the Jesus

In the lonely wooden tower

Who was a sailor bold and true

Water walking on that sea of blue.

You sang the song of Isaac brave

Sacrificed to the vision holy.

And Bethlehem who inflamed us there

Like the shy one at an orgy

The crack in everything

That let the light come in

Like the temple veil is now torn

And our hearts are rent in two

That light has returned from whence it came

To leave us bereft and shorn.

That golden voice so pure and true

Has left us here sad and forlorn. 

The Tower of Song where you reigned

Is empty now inside

That other tower is waiting on high

With its gates flung open wide

Waiting arranged in sweet array  

Are Hank and all the lords of song

To sing you on your way

To your new Tower of Song.

You no longer ache in the places

Where you used to play

The voodoo dolls have all been

Safely stored and locked away.

We will not be hearing from you now

That you are so far away. 

 There will be no new songs to sing

No more music to love and play.

So toll the bells that still can ring

The gates of heaven are now opening.

We will not forget that you gave

to each of us a perfect offering.

It is now truly closing time

So let us sing out loud and strong

 One last and glorious Hallelujah

To our patron saint of song. 

May the Sisters bend to comfort you

In your heavenly new home

And sing one more Hallelujah

To the patron saint of song.